Indo-Persian Historiography to the Fourteenth Century

Book excerpt: This book dicusses the origin and growth of Indo-Persian historiography with particular emphasis on India's contribution to the literary heritage of the Persian world. It also evaluates the important changes that the writing of history underwent as it developed within the Indian environment. Besides a discussion of the methods employed by the Indo-Persian historians, the book focuses, for the first time, on an important contemporary work, Awfi's Jawami'ul-Hikayat-waLivam'ul-Rivaayat as a source for the study of the history of the social and political developments in the Islamic world. This enlarged edition also examines the poet 'Isami's Futuhus-Salatin that chronicles the reign of the Sultans from the eleventh to fourteenth centuries, and is remarkable for the details of the political and social developments that took place in south India after its annexation to the Sultanate of Delhi.